Huda Kattan is a Hollywood-trained make-up artist who turned her back on a promising career at financial recruitment firm to peruse beauty blogging full time. Her hair and make-up tips – posted on social media sites such as Instagram and YouTube – quickly earned her influencer status, garnering almost 4 million followers online.

Today, her website hudabeauty.com is widely regarded as the most influential English-language cosmetics website in the Middle East (drawing 200,000 readers each month). Recently, Kattan was named Instagram’s richest influencer, and reportedly earns up to $18,000 per sponsored post.